Teachers Call Their Salary A Parody Palisades Offers 20.9% Over 3 Years

August 22, 1985|by CHUCK AYERS, The Morning Call

The Palisades Education Association, which represents teachers in the Palisades School District, yesterday said there appears to be an "unwillingness" on the part of the school board of directors to address a salary problem that has the district's teachers getting the lowest average salary in Bucks County.

Jack Blair, chief PSEA negotiator for Palisades teachers, said at a press conference that it would take salary increases of 17 percent in each of the next three years to bring the district up to par with the 13 school districts in the county.

While the school board has offered to increase starting teacher salaries, Blair contended it would not be sufficient to attract qualified teachers.

The board's overall offer is for salary increases totaling 20.9 percent over a three-year contract. But the offer, both the board and teachers association agree, would not bring salaries into line with what is paid by other districts in the county.

"If we were to accept this proposal, we would not be very competitive. Our membership knows this and it is unacceptable to them," Blair remarked.

Over the term of a new three-year contract the teachers aspire to achieve average salaries as compared to the other school districts in Bucks County, Blair said.

Toward that end, the teachers propose a 49.8 percent increase over the term of the contract.

To highlight the point the district would be able to bear an increased tax burden if the teachers' request is accepted. Blair said that while the district ranks last in average salaries and last in instructional expenses per pupil, it ranks sixth out of 13 in income per pupil and is high in assessed property value per pupil.

"The wealth in the district is average and in terms of real estate the district is rather wealthy," Blair said.

Outlining a brief history of the negotiations, Blair said, he received no reply to a letter sent in November 1983, to begin discussions on the issue of salaries.

A salary schedule submitted in April 1984 as part of the old contract agreement calling for a split raise at different times in the year and intended to begin to improve the salary situation was also ignored, he said.

Last August, Blair contended, a request to begin early negotiations was spurned, and they began Jan. 10 - the last possible date allowed by law.

Eleven meetings have been held between the parties and Blair said further that most of those have been of short duration and contained very little hard bargaining.

The board's capital improvements slated for the current year the teachers also take some exception to.

While asbestos removal, roof repair, a new phone system, new buses, adding classrooms and replacing boilers were deemed as necessary by the teachers, Blair took exception with $180,000 in auditorium refurbishment at the high school and $65,000 in expenditures for locker and shower rooms at the stadium.

"We're concerned about some of the things the board has decided to spend money on. While the salary situation is so bad . . . the board sends us a pretty clear message and it has a lot of our membership upset," Blair said.

No strike date has yet been set, he said, but the union's 150 members have given the negotiators strike authorization.